Modern telecommunication services provide features to assist those who are deaf or hearing-impaired. One such feature is a telecommunication device for the deaf (TDD). Hearing-capable users communicate with hearing-impaired users who are users of TDD devices through so-called “relays.” A relay is a telecommunication intermediary service, which is intended to permit a deaf or a hearing-impaired person to utilize a normal telephone network. A relay service may include an operator, referred to as a “call assistant,” who serves as a human intermediary between a hearing user and a hearing-impaired user. The call assistant communicates with the hearing-impaired user using a TDD and communicates with the hearing user by voice over a standard telephone line.
A text captioned telephone system employs a relay service in a mode where the relay transmits both the voice of the hearing user and a text stream of the words spoken by the hearing user. A hearing-impaired user using a text captioned telephone, or telephone enabled to do text enhanced telephony, may carry on a normal telephone conversation with a hearing user while a text transcription of the words spoken by the hearing user is displayed on the text captioned telephone. The text transcription may allow the hearing-impaired user to confirm his or her understanding of the words spoken by the hearing user.
More specifically, during a communication session, a call assistant may listen to the voice signal of a hearing user and “revoice” the words to a speech recognition computer program tuned to that call assistant's voice. A text transcription output from the speech recognition computer is then transmitted to the text captioned telephone being used by the hearing-impaired user. Even with revoicing provided by a trained call assistant, the text transcription received by the hearing-impaired user may include errors. Therefore, correction of the errors within the text transcription may be required.
According to various conventional methods, errors within a text caption are corrected by either backspacing an error in a text caption and displaying corrected text or providing a corrected portion (e.g., a word or a sentence) at the end of a previously provided text caption. Although, backspacing an error in a text caption and displaying corrected text may provide a hearing-impaired user with a context for the correction, this method is distracting to a hearing-impaired user and interrupts the continuity of a conversation between a hearing-impaired user and a hearing user. Further, providing a corrected portion at the end of a previously provided text caption not only interrupts the continuity of a conversation but also fails to provide context of the correction to the hearing-impaired user. Therefore, a hearing-impaired user must determine where the corrected text should be inserted into the previously provided text caption.
A need exists to improve text correction of a text captioning system. Specifically, there is a need for methods of providing text caption correction while providing a user with context of a correction and without distracting the user or interrupting the continuity of a conversation between a hearing-impaired user and a hearing user.